An aggressive immune cell can be beneficial during an infection, but it's important for it to calm down once it has done its job. During chronic inflammation, it continues to be aggressive, causing more harm than good.

THE LEMON PROTOCOL IS BASED ON RESEARCH IN IMMUNE METABOLISM.


When inflammation is mentioned, most people think of what is called acute inflammation. What we focus on is chronic inflammation, which can be simply described as acute inflammation that doesn't resolve. Acute inflammation has an obvious purpose, such as a viral infection, bacteria, or an injury, while the chronic variant keeps the immune system active without anything to attack. Instead, the immune system attacks the body, and this is because self-tolerance has decreased, meaning the immune system doesn't distinguish between the body ('self') and foreign. This is created by the environment changing during an acute inflammation that doesn't resolve. Cells communicate with each other via signaling molecules, and eventually, they have communicated so much that the environment has changed so much that the inflammation doesn't resolve, meaning the immune system remains activated. According to our hypothesis, this change includes competition for certain nutrients, including the amino acid L-glutamine, which is consumed to a greater extent when the immune system is activated.

The immune system is like an ecosystem where everything operates through homeostatic regulation. During chronic inflammation, the immune system is shifted, and one cannot really appoint a scapegoat responsible for inflammation. Nor can one see any beginning or end, as everything is driven by an inflammatory loop. We work with a simplified picture based on granulocytes, much like the image above. The black dots represent inflammatory signaling molecules coming from other immune cells, from dying cells, but can also be viral antigens, endotoxins, and other substances. At the other end to the right, the cell releases its DNA and autoantigens to activate the immune system and thus create more inflammation.

Our focus is on the root CAUSE, not symptoms.

A large part of what we work on is changing what happens in the mitochondria and the so-called citric acid cycle during inflammation. We influence this cycle both directly and indirectly by combining different substances. During inflammation, cells' use of mitochondria changes; instead of merely being responsible for energy production, they become factories for various substances needed for an inflammatory immune response via epigenetic mechanisms. In the adjacent image, you can see how the citric acid cycle in the mitochondria is affected by inflammatory signals.

  1. Increased export of citrate from the mitochondria

  2. Compensatory, reductive metabolism to increase citrate production where more alpha-ketoglutarate is used as a raw material, both in the mitochondria and in the cytosol.

  3. Increased levels of succinate and/or fumarate, which, in relation to the decreasing levels of alpha-ketoglutarate, affect chromatin modification (changes in gene expression). In addition to fumarate and succinate, lactate and the oncometabolite 2-hydroxyglutarate are also competitors to alpha-ketoglutarate in this regard.

THERAPEUTIC TARGETS OF THE LEMON PROTOCOL™

The Lemon Protocol™ is based on a holistic approach but also has a precision that most people are not accustomed to when it comes to natural protocols and products. Our aim has been to eliminate the factor where one follows a protocol, buys a lot of expensive products, and then must sit and hope that it helps a little. In broad strokes, we have three therapeutic goals. Sometimes it may be sufficient to affect one, sometimes two, and sometimes all three need to be influenced. It depends on your starting point. The worse it is, the more reason to go for all three right from the start and then taper off.

SIGNALING PATHWAYS

Polyphenols have many different effects on cells, and an important property is that they act as kinase inhibitors. Kinases are needed for the activation of signaling pathways, which convey messages from, for example, virus antigens or cytokines, into the cell and activate it.

METABOLISM

When a cell is activated, this changes its metabolism. There are interruptions in the citric acid cycle, and the relationship between several substances changes. These changes are an important part of cell activation, enabling it to produce, for example, cytokines and drive inflammation.

EPIGENETIC REGULATION

When a cell is activated, its metabolism changes to generate various substances. These substances are involved in what is called epigenetic modification, which essentially acts as an on/off switch for different genes. This regulation fundamentally dictates to the cell how it should behave.

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